Ed Cooley started his press conference raving about the opportunity to play at the Garden again.
He was then told Georgetown may not play there next year.
He didn’t seem so enthused about that.
St. John’s is planning to play a league game on Lou Carnesecca’s 100th birthday next year, Jan. 5, 2025, at Carnesecca Arena.
Coach Rick Pitino floated the idea of doing it with Connecticut, but that was shot down by the Big East. He mentioned Georgetown and Villanova as other possibilities.
“I’m gonna do what the schedule tells me to [do],” Cooley said after the Johnnies knocked off Georgetown, 86-78, in the two teams’ regular season finale at MSG. “I’ve been born and raised on the Big East, it’s something I love, it’s something I adore. If that’s where we have to play the game, we’ll play the game. I’ll always respect Coach Carnesecca.”
Cooley has now seen St. John’s twice over the last few weeks — both games were narrow Red Storm victories — and was impressed by what he saw.
“They are playing their best basketball coming down the stretch and Coach [Rick] Pitino has done a great job rallying his guys,” Cooley said. “Going through the league, we have several [NCAA] Tournament teams and clearly they are definitely one of them.”
St. John’s (19-12, 11-9) is firmly on the bubble and may still need to win a game in next week’s Big East Tournament to reach the NCAA Tournament for the first time since 2019.
St. John’s hosted junior five-star wing Joson Sanon of Vermont Academy for the game Saturday. It is working on setting up an official visit with Sanon, who recently visited Providence and Kentucky.
As part of Senior Day, Sean Conway received the start and went scoreless in eight minutes. … Chris Ledlum scored 14 points and has reached double figures in three straight games for the second time this year.